The lifecycle of a commercial building typical spans three phases—design, construction, and operation. In recent years, engineering firms involved in the first two phases—design and construction—have begun to use advanced tools to capture and present information about the building. As an example, one or more Building Information Models (BIMs) may be developed by various project participants. A BIM is a three-dimensional (3D) computer assisted design (CAD) model of the building integrated with information about various building components represented in the model. Separate BIMs may be developed for various design aspects of the building such as, for example, structural, civil, architectural, and MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing). Examples of conventional software for developing BIMs include Revit, Civil3D, AutoDesk, Tekla, Pipe3D, Catia, Digital Project, Bentley Project, AutoCad 3D, SketchUp, Rhino, NavisWorks, and Grasshopper.
In a typical project, not all useful information is included in one BIM. For example, a BIM generated by an MEP contractor during the design phase is unlikely to contain complete information on all mechanical, electrical, and plumbing components that will eventually be included in the building. Rather, that BIM likely will simply reserve space for such components. During the construction phase, as purchase decisions are made for various building components, additional BIMs may be created by contractors with additional information on the actually purchased components. As an example, a BIM created in the design phase may designate a space for a chiller, but contain no further information. A separate BIM created by a different company during the construction phase may include additional information about the chiller actually purchased and installed, such as the model and serial number. Additionally, neither of these BIMs may include architectural elements, which are instead included in a separate BIM.
During the third phase of the building, the operations phase, a facilities management (FM) group oversees maintenance and repair of the building. To manage these tasks, FM groups typically utilize a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS). Examples of conventional CMMSs include Mainsaver, Maximo, and FM Desktop. The CMMS may include information to assist FM staff such as scheduled and unscheduled maintenance tasks and completed and repair request tickets. A CMMS typically includes a textual listing of building components, with each typically assigned a serial number or other unique identifier and a textual designation of location within the building. To locate a component within the building, a facilities management employee must manually cross-reference the textual location of the component listed in the CMMS with 2D CAD drawings. Such drawings are typically provided to the FM staff for reference at the completion of construction. An illustration of a conventional 2D CAD drawing is shown in FIG. 1.
2D CAD drawings are not an efficient tool for FM because they generally do not include much data. Thus, the FM staff may be required to locate an identifier for a component on the 2D CAD drawing and search additional documents to locate information about the component. For example, in addition to manually cross-referencing location information with 2D CAD drawings, a facilities management employee may also need to manually access additional paper and electronic repositories to learn more information about the component, such as through a user's manuals. Additionally, 2D CAD drawings are not updated as the building is updated. Building configuration changes, building additions, and building removals are not entered into the original 2D CAD drawings. Instead, these changes may be reflected in additional 2D CAD drawings. These additional 2D CAD drawing may only reflect the updated portions and may require the FM staff to reference those drawings in combination with the original 2D CAD drawings and other reference materials.
Currently, the wealth of information created during the design and construction phases of a building and captured in various BIMs remain unavailable to a FM staff during the operations phase. Even if a contractor were to provide a BIM file to the FM group, a typical facilities management group does not have access to or experience with the advanced 3D modeling software necessary to view and utilize a BIM. Additionally, because relevant information is typically spread across several different BIMs created by different contractors in various phases of the project, there is no one single source of useful information.
A BIM viewing application would also not be able to replace all functions of a legacy CMMS system such as, for example, logging and scheduling maintenance activities and managing help tickets. It would also be costly and disruptive for a FM group to replace an existing legacy CMMS system.
Therefore a solution is needed to provide FM groups the benefit of the information and visualization available in a BIM in a user-friendly package and to integrate with the existing information and functionality of a legacy CMMS system with the BIM information.